Dempsey- Galento Sparring Session

Love the story but sounds like another Dempsey fairy tale .. Jack got spanked by the Kingfish a few years earlier when he was in shape ... I find it hard to believe he walks in off the street and beats a much younger Galento in a slugging match at forty plus ...

 

well, it would explain arcel's admiration for the guy

 

Yeah i guess everything written about Dempsey is bull****. I question whether or not he even existed..........You have Arcel and Stillman, two extremely respected men, as eye witnesses, ****ing idiot.

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/casey/MC_DempseyFeature.htm

Gruff, strict and taciturn, the legendary and brilliant Lou Stillman ran his famous New York boxing gym with a rod of iron. Like Ray Arcel, Lou could be shy and guarded in giving his opinion of different fighters. One has to remember that such special men – along with the likes of Angelo Dundee, Manny Steward, Buddy McGirt and Teddy Atlas today – are constantly quizzed on which fighter they think was the best. They are so wary of getting into endless arguments on the subject. Many fans don’t react kindly when a trainer’s verdict doesn’t happen to dovetail with their own.
Stillman saw thousands of fighters over a great span of years: champions, contenders, preliminary boys, ordinary men just working out. But one day Stillman saw one thing he never forgot. It was the angry punch with which the retired Dempsey knocked out Tony Galento in a sparring session. The sight and sound of that mighty blow being driven home was hard for even Stillman to believe. Right to the end, Lou maintained that it was the hardest shot he had ever seen and that Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight.
Ray Arcel was also a witness to the chilling incident and recalled that the punch nearly decapitated Galento.

 

Galento was recorded as weighing 224 for the foul infested 14th round knockout of Nova following his 233 for Louis. Checking his record, there are indeed indications he was better at a lower weight. Had quick hands and reflexes to go along with his power, a good double jab, and the chin was fine. Also showed survival skills when Max Baer stunned him, and of course got up to uniquely return the favor to Louis.

Being a something of a bleeder, Tony was never going to win the title with Joe in the way, but a return shot after Nova would have been perfectly reasonable, and he could have extended his career if he'd kept his weight under 220-225. (Ultimately, he did pay the price for failing to do this, with two amputated legs and a diabetes shortened life.)

It's easy to understand why Dempsey was so frustrated with him. A natural talent who produced his biggest and final major career win in his last match before turning 30, then was kaput.

The alleged knockout punch could be apocryphal embellishment by Stillman and Arcel, I suppose. Seems likely there's nobody left alive who witnessed it. Unlike he grant though, I don't have trouble believing Jack schooled him. I watched the Levinski-Dempsey exhibition when it was on youtube, and the Kingfish used a very different style to what a goofing, reticent and recoiling Galento would have applied in sparring with an aggravated former champion. Levinski outmaneuvered and frustrated a lead footed Mauler, utilizing his springy, youthful legs before a paying audience and the movie camera. (Apparently, this might make Jack the only one to share the ring with both Bat and King Levinski.)

 

Actually, for the doubters, this story of Dempsey giving Galento a beating in the gym was reported in the boxing columns at the time.
Even a search on google news archive should turn up one or two of them.
It's not some story that appeared years later.

 

I don't believe this version above of Dempsey going up the "balcony"of Stillman's gym
and stripping to his underwear,and battering Tony Galento.!
I had been in Stillmans gym dozens of times years later,and I don't RECALL a RING in the upstairs balcony,as this story suggests. I recall there were several heavy punching bags, and boxers would then shadow box and move around...It may have had a Ring in the balcony in the late thirties but i doubt it.
Chatting with fellow spectators older than I was ,had heard about Dempsey boiling mad at young incorrigible Galento ,stripped off his shirt, putting on gloves, and almost beheading
Tony with a left hook ! I believe this story,because aside from reading this version, aside
from the fact there was no ring in the upstairs balcony, some older spectators would tell me this version everytime,claiming to have seen this event...

 

creative journalism

 

I've read enough reported on this incident in articles from the 1930s, that I believe SOMETHING must have happened, Besides, what are the reasons to doubt ? It's not as if Galento was known to be a great fighter or serious business in the gym.

 

Douche bag, those are second accounts .. show me where Ray Arcel wrote about this first hand.
http://books.google.com/books?id=rT...s=7_Mo_VrG5S&sig=ZGZPgZAnjE2o34nbGmo5Rjljd9Y&

 

I think there's more than a grain of truth in these reports.

http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers...IBAJ&pg=1825,6892318&dq=dempsey+galento&hl=en


http://news.google.co.uk/newspapers...IBAJ&pg=4260,2282041&dq=dempsey+galento&hl=en


I've read others too, from around that time.

 

Ray Arcel recounted the story over the years, saying he was there. I can't remember the exact details of his version, but he told it to press men in later years.

 

U, most everytime I went to Stillman's gym in the 1940s, i woukd see Ray Arce, Whitey Bimstein, Freddie Brown etc. Even Charley Goldman was there most of the times i attended. So why would Ray Arcel lie about this event ?
Why would that rough cigar smoking pit bull Lou Stillman, lie about this event when Dempsey in a fit of rage, flattened a young inexperienced Tony Galento.First off when this HAPPENED,would a young chastized Galento go all out to try to hurt the legendary Dempsey ? Of course not. I have read this account from many boxing writers,in the magazine articles of the 1940s,stating this incident, without ever reading a rebuttal. As I have posted
before I am almost certain that there was no upper ring in the balcony at Stillman's gym, just the two rings where Lou Stillman presided over on the main floor...Ray Arcel was called the "gentleman " trainer, and I believe him and Lou Stillman...Why not ,they were there..
P.S. Sometimes after so many negative posts of Jack Dempsey,I wonder if he
even existed.Cheers U...

 

No one is flat out saying they lied Burt ... my point is that it could be taken out of context and blown out of proportion ... considering Galento took dozens of shots from a prime Joe Louis before going down it seems a bit of a stretch that s forty year old , inactive Dempsey slips out of his jacket and lays out a much younger Galento with one shot .. anything is possible but to me there is more to the story ..